Miles and Tate-Libby crews win as Wednesday Night Series ends

SAILING

September 02, 1992|By Nancy Noyes

Well, boys and girls, that's it for another year.

The Annapolis Yacht Club's venerable and ever-popular Wednesday Night Series ended a week ago, leaving the crews of about 150 boats with nothing to do on Wednesday evenings until next spring. It's kind of a sad feeling.

The series, which began in April, consisted of two separately scored eight-week halves with a couple of weeks off in the middle for five handicap divisions and five cruising one-design classes.

Because the seventh race was abandoned before completion two weeks ago, the second half of the series did not get to the full complement of eight races -- and the magical worst-race throwout point.

This meant that consistency was of particular importance to success in the series because everyone had to eat his absences, bad luck and mistakes.

In the large and potentially points-costly PHRF 2 fleet, Davidsonville sailor Bill Miles and his Sidekick crew showed remarkable consistency when they finished off a very successful series with a gun and a corrected-time win of nearly four minutes to top this highly competitive class by more than 16 points.

Their finishes included four aces and nothing worse than a sixth.

Showing another kind of consistency, in a much closer overall contest, were Pearson 30 sailors Rod Tate and Art Libby and their crew on Results -- the only team in the fleet to win both halves of their competition this year.

"If you've been out there as long as I have, you're bound to win sometime, because you know the currents and the winds and all," said Libby, a 20-year veteran of the series.

Libby was quick to compliment both his competition and the Race Committee for jobs well done.

Of second-placer Ed Paglee and his Andiamo team, Libby said, "He sailed a really good half, probably even better than ours with more firsts, but I guess we were just a little more consistent."

He praised the Race Committee for its hard work, and for instituting several new safety and enjoyment features.

These included offseting turning marks around pairs of green and red buoys to help reduce the possibility of collisions, and for actions such as shortening courses on occasion to finish a race or two before the time limit expired.

"It was mostly light air this half," he observed, "more than I can remember in at least three years.